County, town talk 50-50 split on operations cost
A popular recycling center in Willits will remain open for the time being after the town of Basalt and Pitkin County discussed an informal agreement during Tuesday evening’s joint meeting.
The county is looking at a 50-50 share of costs with the town to keep the needed facility operating and recyclables out of the landfill.
Basalt had said it would no longer help fund the facility, which is operated by Waste Management, come the end of April. The town has been subsidizing the recycling drop-off center to the tune of $3,300 per month since September.

The price of oil has been on a downward dive for a couple of years. This has been great for some businesses and not so for others. One industry hit especially hard is the recycling business.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
The price of oil has been on a downward dive for a couple years now, and one business hit especially hard by low oil prices is the recycling business. Here's Stacey Vanek Smith from our Planet Money team.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Last spring, oil prices had just dropped in half from $120 a barrel to about $60 a barrel, and all of these recycling plants were going out of business. To figure out why, I visited Tom Outerbridge at Sims Recycling in Brooklyn, right near where live.

It's easy to think we're being virtuous when we fill up the blue recycling bin and put it on the curb. But it's clear we have embraced some magical thinking when it comes to what can be recycled.
NPR's Dianna Douglas visited a waste management plant in Elkridge, Md., to get the answers from Michael Taylor, director of recycling operations for the plant. Taylor's No. 1 tip: Don't recycle plastic bags, even if they're full of newspaper. They gum up the whole processing system. Every few hours Taylor has to shut down the machines to remove all the plastic.

"In many municipalities around the country, the days of sorting your recyclables for curbside pickup are long gone, replaced by a system called "single stream" recycling. But what happens after all those bits of plastic, paper, glass and metal get put in the bin? Because it's often collected by the same workers who pick up the garbage, it's easy to wonder if the recyclables make their way to the dump, too. But single-stream recycling ends up at a place called a materials recovery facility. An MRF is part warehouse, part industrial plant; a single facility can process hundreds of tons every day, using workers and high-tech machines."

Basalt only covering cost of Willits facility through April
Pitkin County commissioners had a long discussion on the moral benefits of the area’s recycling program on Tuesday, but stressed that municipalities need to step up their share of funding to support the costly amenity into the future. The high cost of recycling service is being compounded by the commodity markets falling drastically in the last few years, making recycling facilities unprofitable. The county is now looking at having municipalities share the cost of service at a possible 50-50 clip. That would mean an annual match of $97,000 from the city of Aspen, $23,300 from Basalt, and $56,600 from Snowmass Village for operations.

The vast majority of recyclable materials from the Roaring Fork Valley are being shipped across the Pacific Ocean. That’s according to a major area trash and recycling hauler. Recycling has been a hot topic among leaders in the Valley, as the price of collecting and trucking plastic, glass, and other materials out of the area is getting more expensive.

"The chances of your recyclables going to China are probably in the 95% - 100% range,” says Scott Eden. He’s founder and President of Carbondale-based Mountain Waste and Recycling, the combination of the two companies Intermountain Waste & Recycling and Mountain Roll-Offs, Inc. “And there are a bunch of factors, that none of us control, that impact [sending recyclables to China]."